If you don't already know Thelma Schoonmaker's name, you almost certainly know her work if you've ever seen a Martin Scorsese picture. The NY Times ran a piece talking with her about editing long movies, specifically her work on The Wolf of Wall Street:, and she does better than most critics I've read thus far in defending the pace and lingering final shots in the 3-hour masterpiece:
David Denby’s pan in The New Yorker thrice mentions its three-hour duration, while Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune describes a scene that “goes on two minutes too long,” before lamenting that “those minutes add up.” But Ms. Schoonmaker said that was precisely the director Martin Scorsese’s design. “A film like ‘Wolf’ is intended to be sprawling,” she said. “Marty wanted things to go just a little too far in the scenes sometimes, to test the patience of the audience just a bit. Because that’s what the whole movie is about.”
